Mobile Social Software from the Inside Out?
Nicolas Nova, Media and Design Lab (EPFL) + near future laboratory
ETech, March 6th, 2008

who I am
Media and Design Lab (EPFL)
http://ldm.epfl.ch
I work at the Media and Design Lab

my work
My work is about user experience research. I run user studies of mobile and pervasive
technologies... using both qualitative and quantitative methods... to document usability, uses
and socio-cognitive implications of these technologies. Uncover the role of the tool, context,
other people, etc.

(Picture: Blast Theory)
Uncle Roy: location tracking

the “where are you?” promise
help mutually establish and share a spatio-temporal
context
allow group coordination for meetings
an index of interactional availability
Location-awareness relates to the communication practice of giving or asking geographical
information in cell phone conversations. Various studies have shown that it helps people to
mutually establish and share a spatio-temporal context (Laurier, 2001), allow group
coordination for meetings (Weilenmann, 2003) or be an index of interactional availability
(Arminen, 2006). Given the importance of this phenomenon, Arminen claims that a technical
solution to indicate location-awareness would have a wide applicability for a majority of
mobile users.

expected value of location-awareness of others
affordance for social encounters, open conversations
improve coordination
cue to give directions or tell one’s location
a resource for conversation
see the progress of others
support and re-ensure users in what they already know
and expect about their partners
Current research about the expected value of location-awareness of others have led to this
lsit of roles (empirically observed, there might be others)

plenty of location-based services
Examples of location-based applications... large array of purposes (security, play,
serendipity...)
+ tom tom buddies + iphone application

Urban tapestries: digital annotation of space
Urban Tapestries (http://research.urbantapestries.net)

2007 - Where we are
Garmin,
TomTom
single-user LBS

any solution? > other forms+contents of outputs
text, symbolic representation, minimaps, global mapcombination
“Location is more than GIS information” as explained by Kevin Slavin (see his Where2.0 talk in
2006). It’s more than geographical coordinates, it can also be whether a user is indoor/
outdoor, whether the mobile device can hear you’re on busy street. It’s about richer
information. A good example is Jabberwocky (Intel) that allows to see the presence of familiar
strangers in the vicinity, anonymized.
And valuable experiences might be created with disinformation.
Slavin suggests that it might be valuable to get lost or to forget where where they are. An
example of such idea is “isolatr”, a system that aims at helping where other people are not.
The raw information (location) is the same but it’s a di\"erence way to query it.

Take advantage of histories
In addition, do not forget the asynchronous character of location-awareness. Histories of
interactions as in this Jaiku example are interesting. Past interactions have an added value
and can be used to create conversations AFTER the events (comments). This “history” is a
social object that can be shared and serve a trigger for conversation (see Jyri Engestrom’s
talks about social objects): it’s flickr with locations instead of pictures. Why this is important?
because in a group it gives a peripheral awareness and a way to enhance social bonds.

user experience issues > difficulty in interpreting
• People’s expectations... and frustrations
- believing the system, saying that the system was
wrong or not understanding.
• Automatic location awareness != self-disclose
• Different levels of granularity often not supported
- x,y versus name
- kitchen / restaurant / London / UK / Europe
• Mismatch between people’s representations
- which level with whom?
These are my favorite, the one I focused on in my research: the psychology of users. There is
an intrinsical di!culty in interpreting the information conveyed by MLA tools.
- Automatically giving each others’ location is di\"erent than letting people explicitly
disclosing it.
The underlying variable = intentionality embedded in the production of a message, an act of
communication (if A gives her location to B while visiting Paris, that means that she
intentionally assumes that she’d like to meet A)
- Di\"erent levels of granularity are often not supported: location or geographical coordinates
are not meaningful, place rather than space (naming). For example knowing that I am in this
Museum building makes sense for a person who’d like to meet me here but it does not make
sense to my friends in Geneva.
- In terms of users’ perception: there is often a mismatch between how people perceive their
environment. A has her own perception of the area (naming) and B has a di\"erent.

any solution? > let people in control
Allow the system to convey
intentionality
Self-disclose = maximum flexibility
and mutual adjustement
some systems (not technically location-based applications) are interesting because they get rid of that
problem

user experience issues > contextual problems
bad integration in people’s practices and context
The final problem lays in the bad integration of the system in users’ practices and context.
For instance, this applications by Honda is a map-based social software that gives location
indications, navigation, restaurant rating, place tagging...
And don’t tell me the person will stop on the highway to rate the restaurant he just left.

any solution? > user-centered design
look at people/context/practices/activities/motivations
(how) will they use your location-based service?
users are not rich white occidental who go needs on-the spot restaurant recommendation or
buddy finder every day
AND exceptions are very important here

user experience issues > critical mass problem
hardware + software fragmentations + carrier “walled
gardens” = difficulty to have a critical mass
The second problem = hardware + software fragmentations + carrier “walled gardens” make
it di!cult to reach a critical mass of users... it’s indeed di!cult to reach cluster e\"ect,
Metcalfe Law
Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the
square of the number of users of the system. Even though the notion of “value”/usefulness is
vague, this model is interesting to explain usage of multi-user applications

any solution? > *sigh*

infrastructure issue > common belief

infrastructure issue > infrastructures fails and it’s
not only technical
The world’s rough: infrastructures are not seamless, they can fail: unreliable network,
latency, bandwidth, security, unstable topology, or network heterogeneity. So what does that
mean for location-aware applications? Positioning accuracy can change, networks are patchy,
gps works outdoor, not indoor, the transition gps->wifi is not good,etc
Additionally, cost and ownership are important issues.

infrastructure issue > space is not seamless

infrastructure issue > space is not
homogeneous - continuity issues
Picture by Patrick Jermann
di\"erent places, di\"erent infrastructures, rugosity

infrastructure issue > digital is physical
See Graham, S., Strategies for Networked Cities
metro in paris: 20 square meters to have GSM stu\"

infrastructure issue > location quality
see fabien girardin’s work

any solution? > seamful design
reveal the “seams” and the
imperfections to the users
(limits, boundaries,
uncertainties)
...to allow users to lie
...to make them aware
of the limits
Second, seamful design (Matthew Chalmers, University of Glasgow) is another direction. It
refers to the idea that ‘seams’ may be inevitable, and users should perceive and appropriate
them for their own uses. Present it to users and make them aware of this information so that
they can take advantage of it during the game and use it as a valuable resource. For example,
it can be a way for people to lie: in a location-based game, giving players a representation of
where there is GPS coverage and where there isn’t so that players can go there and use it as a
trick. This is what happened in one of Chalmers’ experiment.

lots of issues, some solutions
????
Plazes
Botfighters
Dodgeball
Loopt
Active Badge
Hummingbird
early 90s now
innovation takes time

thank you very much!
nicolas.nova@gmail.com